Following a talk at Brown University, former CBS News Anchor Walter Cronkite was asked what he considered the best preparation for a career in journalism. He replied, "A good liberal arts education." The communications world is dominated by liberal arts graduates. Today more than one-half of all journalists and public relations professionals prepared for their careers in communications through liberal arts study.
As almost any experienced journalist will tell you, it is not enough to know the technical aspects of television, radio, and newspaper production; you must also grasp the larger implications of the story you're covering and know how to convey them to your audience. For these most important aspects of a career in journalism, a liberal arts education is ideal.
At Lawrence, we place considerable emphasis upon effective thinking and writing. From your first Freshman Studies class, you will be taught how to think and write, argue and defend your ideas concisely and effectively. Whether the course is Literary Analysis, Reconsidering the 1960s, or Political Economy of East Asia, your writing will receive close attention from your instructor.
Campus Organizations
We learn to write by doing so, and opportunities to develop your skills in writing are always available to students at Lawrence.
The student newspaper, The Lawrentian, is published weekly. The paper is edited by students, and the student staff is involved with every aspect of its production, not only writing, editing, and typesetting the copy, but also taking the photographs and designing the layout. There are staff positions for news writers, editors, layout artists, feature writers, advertising representatives, photojournalists, and typesetters.
The Ariel, Lawrence's yearbook, uses primarily a pictorial format. Students work throughout the year to collect pictures, write short articles, and design the publication.
Tropos, the highly regarded student literary magazine, is published each spring. The editors review and select works of fiction, non-fiction, photographs, drawings, and verse by Lawrentians. Throughout the academic year, the members of the Tropos staff publish a 'zine and organize literary workshops and poetry readings.
The campus radio station, WLFM, is affiliated with Wisconsin Public Radio. Students provide the programming during the evening and weekends, with daytime programming provided by WPR. All students, regardless of their major, are welcome to submit proposals for programming.
Internships
A distinctive internship program, "Journalism and the Liberal Arts," enables students to gain first-hand experience at reporting and editing, while also encouraging them to do extensive background research on the stories that they're covering.
Students in the program have supplemented their work at local television stations with readings on recent developments in American journalism. The reading list and assignments for this course are tailored to fit the student's interests. A student who wanted to write movie reviews might, for example, take advantage of the chance to immerse herself in film theory or study the work of important critics like James Agee and Pauline Kael.
"Journalism and the Liberal Arts" is open to students majoring in any field, and it allows staffers on The Lawrentian to earn academic credit for their work on the campus paper. The goal of the program is to help students bridge the gap between campus and newsroom and to develop the kinds of expertise that characterize our most thoughtful and influential reporters.
Distinguished Visitors
Every year Lawrence welcomes leaders in the fields of journalism and writing to campus. In addition to giving convocation speeches, these visitors work closely with students in classes, conferences, and workshops. Past visitors include:
After Lawrence
A Perspective
The late Edwin Bayley, '40 (dean emeritus of the graduate school of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley), shared his perspective about the value of liberal arts as preparation for a career in journalism in a commencement address at Lawrence. His comments are as true now as they were then. Following are excerpts from his talk:
"Forty-six years ago, when I stood here to get my bachelor's degree as an English major, I had no doubt about the value of a liberal arts degree. I believed that I was well prepared to seek any sort of career I might wish, or to go on to graduate school to qualify myself for some profession or other specialization. I think that most of my fellow graduates felt the same way.
"In the last ten years, however, many students seem to have lost faith in the liberal arts ideal, and have sought instead to prepare themselves specifically for certain kinds of jobs. Large numbers of them have been fighting to get into fields such as accounting, engineering, and computer programming.
"It is true that people with an MBA or with training in some of these other specialties have been starting jobs at higher pay than the average liberal arts graduate, and I am sure that is one reason for the rush to specialization. I think it also reflects anxiety; students are worried, afraid to take chances, and they want training for specific jobs rather than seeking what I consider an education.
"The program with which I have been associated for the last 17 years – a graduate school of journalism – was based on the idea that the best possible preparation for a career in journalism was a liberal arts degree and education, with specialized training at the graduate level. I went to the University of California to run that program because I agreed with the idea of it, and after 17 years, I can say with certainty that it works very well.
"I read a story recently in a Minneapolis newspaper which said that corporations this year were looking more favorably upon the employment of liberal arts graduates than they had in the past. It quoted one employer as saying that his firm considered a liberal arts education an excellent background, and believed that 'someone taught to learn and to solve problems can learn rather quickly how to do other things.' Which, of course, is the whole idea.
"What you know as a Lawrence graduate is how to study, how to learn, how to discipline your mind--in short, how to think. That ability is of great value."